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The Mills (dreaming of summer!)

After the super bizarre weather at the end of March that had us at the beach, I have been dreaming of the days of summer that had us swimming nearly every day.

My oldest daughter LOVES the water, and always has. My youngest, however, thinks it is the absolute worst thing on earth. She hates it with a real and intense passion. (Anytime she nears the bath, she screams… I have been trying for a while to make it a calm and peaceful experience for her, to no avail. Mind numbing screams. I hope our neighbours forgive us…)

In any case. My oldest is a fish. And because of this, we were at water most of the summer last year, and she learned to swim. Something that, admittedly, took me until I was about 11 to do. (Shameful, huh, growing up on the coast of Maine? My love of water is closer to my youngest’s… I like it mostly for it’s cleaning purposes, but otherwise I like to sit on the sand…) My daughter’s absolute favourite swimming hole is Damariscotta Mills, which is, technically speaking, in the foggy area between Newcastle and Nobleboro. There is a sweet shallow beach for the wee ones, sharp pointy rocks for the big kids, and a bridge for jumping for the adventuresome types. Thankfully, my daughter still loves the side where there is a strip of sand and grass for the babies to play.

On some mornings (ones when I didn’t have to rush off to work) we would pack up our cooler full of snacks and head out the door, finding ourselves at the Mills before anyone else. It would often still require a long sleeve shirt for the first hour, and then layers would be shed and my girl would be up to her waist in the cool of Damariscotta Lake. I would have to remind her not to go too far, as much as she wanted to. She was bound and determined come summer’s end that she would swim to the middle. Ah, my little fish.

(The Damariscotta Mills swimming hole is a challenging place to find if you aren’t local and don’t know where you are… But if you can find Alewives Fabrics, you can find it. Just keep going up the hill!)